Cooling fans have been used for many years in a wide variety of electronic systems including, for example, audio and video home electronics and both home-based and office-based computer systems. These fans are typically needed to prevent overheating of the electronic components contained in such systems. However, a long recognized annoyance which results from the use of cooling fans is the often substantial amount of aeroacoustic noise which these fans generate. More often than not, this noise is considered an unavoidable consequence of fan-based cooling techniques, and users of electronic systems have come to accept the attendant noise associated therewith.